> What Would Prevent A Company From Shipping A Product Based On OpenThread Without Joining The Thread Group?
> If developers choose not to join Thread Group and ship products using Thread technology, they are not conferred the IP rights required to practice and ship Thread technology, and may subject themselves to legal action, including but not limited to licensing fees.
It feels like even sharing my designs run a major risk of landing me in trouble. This sounds catastrophically hostile to open source in general.
If I ever want to make use of what I've built in any even remotely commercial setting, everything I've built feels liable to be infected & polluted with this copyright. I could rip out Threads & still not feel safe. I definitely can't sell a couple copies of this cool thing to other hobbyists on indiegogo.
The terms of use essentially outlaw community. Yes, maybe hobbyists can play with this, but they cannot form communities, they cannot share wisdom, they can't sell boards to each other, they can't even talk about the protocol or spec on detail.
So yeah, hobbyists arent expressly forbidden. But having any community of hobbyists seems fraught with difficulties. You can only hobbyist by yourself, discussing with no one.
Fuck Threads.
> Yes, maybe hobbyists can play with this, but they cannot form communities, they cannot share wisdom, they can't sell boards to each other, they can't even talk about the protocol or spec on detail.
But it just says you can't ship products and talking isn't shipping a product. The only part I see there is what if you sell things built on it.
Like sure it could be more open and sure having some small business exemption would be good but that's not the same as not being allowed to just make some stuff and talk about it.
> Membership in Thread Group is necessary to implement, practice, and ship Thread technology and Thread Group specifications.
They probably didn't expect interest from singular hobbyists, let alone hobbyists reading what they put out in the most uncharitable fashion. They have some clarifying to do if they decide that they care.
Practice here is as in "practice medicine", not "practice for tryouts".
"probably"?
It's a legal document that lists the things you may not do as vaguely and as broad as possible, and lists suing you as the first recourse in their remediation.
It's unwise to err on the side of "allowed" instead of erring on the side of "disallowed".
There's only a singular threat in the license is here: "Failure to maintain active Thread Group membership while shipping Thread technology may result in legal action, including but not limited to licensing fees."
It specifically mentions shipping.
It specifically mentions "specifications" too, and I did quote that bit in a previous comment that you replied to, so I know you read it.
How are we supposed to interpret "Membership in Thread Group is necessary to implement, practice, and ship Thread technology and Thread Group specifications."
You are specifically, in the license, forbidden from implementing, practicing or shipping the SPECIFICATIONS.
You literally cannot transfer any material or content that reveals the specifications.
Thread Group [...] grants you [...] license [...] to view, download, save, reproduce and use the Specification solely for your own internal purposes
[...] you shall not: 1) loan, rent, lease, sublicense, sell, or permit others to use the Specification; 2) modify, adapt, translate, or otherwise change the Specification in any manner or create any derivative work of the Specification;
[...] copy or reproduce the Specification except for backup or archival purposes in connection with your internal use; or 4) remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Specification.
So yeah, you can't create derivative works from these specifications. Is a blog post about it a derivative work? Who knows. Probably not. Probably what they meant is you just can't create your own Threads 2.0 specification or create unauthorized translation of it (which although restrictive is reasonable because they just don't trust you to not mess things up). They clearly just want to remain the single source of truth for Thread specification on the net, to avoid ecosystem fragmentation and they intend to sustain themselves from licensing fees from commercial device manufacturers.
Even with all their conditions normal rights to citation, critique, parody probably apply.
> are not conferred the IP rights required to practice and ship Thread technology,
Under this, it sounds like one isn't even allowed to dabble with Thread without $7.5k/year membership. You aren't allowed to practice is the words they respond with, which seems far more constraining than shipping.
Re-quoting the licensing agreement requires to download the spec,
> view, download, save, reproduce and use the Specification solely for your own internal purposes
> are not conferred the IP rights required to practice and ship Thread technology,
> Membership in Thread Group is necessary to implement, practice, and ship Thread technology and Thread Group specifications.
So yeah, actually it seems like even doing hobbyist things by yourself & telling no one is still far more than Thread group allows.
Fuck Thread! It's just so unbelievably shitty having the connected device technologies of our world be un-practiceable by mere mortals.
Anyone posting to a blog might also be regarded as shipping.
You're also focusing on one gotcha while ignoring the other terrifying clauses here. Are you still using the spec for internal purposes if you are talking about it?
IANAL but I strongly recommend any hobbyists or open source people steer the hell clear. These are terms for no engagement other than those willing to pay the anual fee.
Not saying that forgives this abysmal licensing regime of course.
Unless your blog is "I'm sharing holiday photos and nothing else", there's a lot of instances where it could be define as an outlet with commercial interests.
And, ultimately, I have no desire to spend any time and money on fighting even completely invalid claims. I'd rather spend my time watching cat videos on YouTube instead.
It only reserves right to charge you if you ship a product. And by product they most obviously mean a device and by ship they obviously mean sell (or gift, or possibly rent) to some customers.
All of this sounds like a thunderstorm in a glass of water by people who read too many software licenses.
> Membership in Thread Group is necessary to implement, practice, and ship Thread technology and Thread Group specifications.
And somehow think that the restrictions only apply when you "ship", but not when you "implement" or "practice".
"Failure to maintain active Thread Group membership while shipping Thread technology may result in legal action, including but not limited to licensing fees."
Which specifically mentions legal action in reaction to shipping only.
"Membership in Thread Group is necessary to ..." is just a statement of their wishes.
It's like "Sleeping is necessary for good health". It doesn't mean we'll sue you, if you don't sleep.
But also make sure others know. Actively warn and discourage other developers away from that technology. Make "Threads" regret their lack of openness.
Imagine how much less innovation there would be if it cost $7,500 a year to write anything that uses the Internet Protocol suite of standards.
Also, I don't think it helps to use this word "hobbyists".
The entire world runs on free open source software written by unpaid volunteers who are poorly supported, isolated, and exploited by mega tech corporations that are parasitical on their work.
"hobbyists" sounds demeaning, It makes it sound like the great under-structure of common coding is somehow less-than-serious, somehow outside some commercial ecosystem rather than the very soil and food that sustains it.
This (self) perception needs to change. Big Tech would die tomorrow without the "hobbyists" it depends on.
It's seems pretty clear-cut to me:
Q: What Would Prevent A Company From Shipping A Product Based On OpenThread Without Joining The Thread Group?
A: (roughly) You will be sued
Now, what does the word "product" in "Shipping a product based on OpenThread" mean?
A product is any (or some combination of) the following:
1. A devkit
2. A book
3. A blog post
4. Any hardware that uses Thread
So, yeah, you can't write a tutorial for using Thread, or make a doorbell for your mum's house, or tell your friend how to read the protocol, or start up a /r/thread community to help each other use it.
Looks pretty damned locked down to me, without at least the FRAND loopholes.
Why would a book, or tutorial, or blog post be excluded from the clause "Thread technology and Thread Group specifications"?
If you have a valid patent for e.g "A Device or Appparatus that does FooBar", you get certain exclusive rights for just that - that device is the "patented invention" where making/using/selling one is an infringement of the patent, but the description of that device (for example, the patent text itself) is not. A book about doing FooBar isn't a device that does FooBar, and neither is a tutorial or a blog post - the description of the patent is public, the knowledge in it is public, and you're legally allowed to redistribute that knowledge.
However, using the "patented invention" is an infringement[1], with no exceptions, so if the reader of that book or blog post would like to follow it and actually implement the patented method or follow the patented process in the privacy of their home, that would technically be a violation even if they are unlikely to be sued as the patent holder won't find out about it.
[1] 35 U.S.C. 271 Infringement of patent. (a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States, or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.
Mum's doorbell might be gray area as you can easily say that it's still your doorbel, you just chose to install it wherever you chose to install it.
What does that have to do with anything? They don't say "we will sue you if you use our patents", they say "we will sue you if you use our specification".
Then it might work.